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Well, yesterday went about as badly as it could have. I got to work early (8:00) so I could book some overtime. At 4:00 my father calls and tells me I have to go to Sheridan college to pick up a program and a CD (with the program burned to it) for the Bay Area Science and Engineering Fair (which he's helping run). I tell him I have things to do after work, and he tells me that not only do I have to get it, I have to leave early to get it. So no overtime. He seemed somewhat stressed about it, which was why I agreed to go get it.

I hop on the QEW (which was moving at about 20 km / h) and drive all the way into Oakville, go up to Sheridan, go to Receiving (which was where I was to pick it up) and are greeted by the two idiots that work in Receiving:

Me: My name's Geoff Olynyk, I'm here to get a program and a CD for BASEF.
Them: A program? Full-time or part-time?

I tried to explain to them that this was like a glossy brochure, not a program of studies, but noooo, they wanted to give me the Sheridan CD that had a listing of their programs of study on it. (And people like this can drive cars?) Obviously the thing I was to pick up from receiving had not been left there, so I called the head of the Design Dept. (for those who don't know, Sheridan is a really good graphics art / design school in Oakville, Ont.). I got him to tell me who was working on the design of the program, and I got her extension. I called her and was informed that I was early. I walked through the corridors, found her office, and sat there while she burned the CD. During all this time, I was fuming, because I had plans of my own, and instead was sitting here watching this girl burn the CD. She did have one of the Apple 21" widescreen studio LCD displays though, which was nice to ogle.

Anyway I managed to leave there, got back on the QEW (being outrun by old men on walkers again) and headed back to Burlington, where I went to Cycle City, an ATV / motorcycle store, to buy parts for my dune buggy. As soon as I informed them that I was there buying parts for a go-kart / dune buggy, two guys started playing NHL 99 in front of me!!. The one guy I got to talk to me treated me like an idiot, and finally informed me that "I don't want to buy hubs there, they cost way too much for me".

Then I went and got my hair cut, but didn't have time to get the tips done, which was what I really wanted. Then I went to Quiznos to get some subs, and was in line for twenty minutes, only to find out that their Interac machine was broken, so I couldn't get the subs. I literally wanted to just go home and go to bed.

Anyway, the day wouldn't have been bad at all if it hadn't been for my dad wanting me to go to Sheridan. But that wasn't what pissed me off. What pissed me off was that it was the latest in a long string of elitist assholes at stores. I have three major strikes against me when it comes to stores that have any kind of specialty.

I'm 18 years old

I am building things myself, rather than buying one complete

I always ask for a price. I hate it when a catalog doesn't give you prices... do they just assume that I'll pay whatever they ask?

Anyway the net result of all this is whenever I go into a store (most especially industrial supply stores, steel distributors, or ATV or electronics stores) I'm treated like a nobody. Clearly the salesmen at these places didn't learn the first lesson (even before 'The customer is always right')... that I have money. i want to give this money to that store in return for a product. The salesman should try to make this happen. Half of these places are more interested in ridiculing me for my lack of knowledge, or trying to shoot me down when I do have knowledge, or just laughing at me because I'm an overly ambitious kid. And that's just wrong.

Anyway, my problems are small (Iraq has been invaded, a guy on my fans list had his kid die, the company I work at is probably going out of business, millions are dying of AIDS, if you want to get really global) but I wanted to write down what I thought about elitist salesmen.

Something's fishy about this whole Elizabeth Smart thing. There has to be a reason why she didn't want to go home that badly --- remember, folks: you read it here first. The father was up to something no good, or else they were more religiously fundamentalist than you'd think, or something. I just can't buy that she wouldn't want to go home and could be brainwashed that easily by some homeless nutjob. Anyway that's my 2 cents. It's friday afternoon and I'm cutting out early today (hopefully) and going up to Guelph.

This weekend I'm buying a clutch, axle, brakes, and bearings for the trike and dune buggy. Once again, I'm excited about how the progress is going, something that hasn't happened for a few years.

So I ride the bus to and from work every day. Lack of willingness / money for a car, and all that.

In the mornings, normally in the back of the number 1 (plains rd.) bus there is a guy that takes the corner seat and sleeps there. That's pretty much the only seat on the #1 that is comfortable enough to sleep in. He wasn't there yesterday, so I thought, sweet, I'll get that seat, and catch up on some Zs on the way to work...

Of course, at the next stop (Zellers) a mentally challenged dude gets on and instead of sitting at the front where they normally do, comes back and sits beside me. Asks me for cigarettes, then when I decline, holds one arm in the air for like 20 minutes. How did he do that? With the other arm, he pulled out a daytimer (which was surprisingly packed), put it on his lap, and started tearing pages out, crumpling them up, and throwing them forward in the bus. Fabulous. I slept a little bit but it was too distracting for me to get much serious slumber done.

Well, I get to go to Mohawk today to do some welding. If you go to my website, and go to the 'some cool pictures' link, you can see some of my designs for my trike. Tonight I'm working on the dune buggy and the trike.

Work was booooring today. I am copying out a manual for a column flotation cell that we bought and are reselling. This manual is horribly written, so as I copy it, I'm fixing the style and typographical errors. Fabulously exciting work I do, I tell ya.